


They Destroy Themselves in Unheard of Contradictions

by liketreesinnovember



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, Childbirth, Chronic Illness, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-30 01:06:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18305051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liketreesinnovember/pseuds/liketreesinnovember
Summary: Joanna and Tyrion, Victorian AU.“It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide—plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.""There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will."- "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman





	They Destroy Themselves in Unheard of Contradictions

Mother is not well, and Tyrion does not want to cause her unnecessary stress, his father reminds him. So he stays away from the sick room. The room in question overlooks the garden of the country house, and when he is standing amongst the roses Tyrion can look up and pinpoint its curtained window. Sometimes the curtain is parted slightly, but Tyrion can see only darkness in the small corner between the curtain and the window frame, with no hint as to the room’s contents visible.

His sister reminds him, regularly, that mother would not have her sick spells in the first place if it hadn’t been for him. Lady Joanna had not been the same since giving birth to her dwarf son, and as Tyrion sat amongst the roses in the garden, he thought about how something beautiful could come from ugly dirt and worms, and how it had been the other way around with him. His mother was beautiful but she had given birth to something ugly and malformed, like a rose giving birth to a slug.

Tyrion kicks at the dirt beneath the roses, furiously, until the roots begin to pull away from the earth. They are too beautiful and too red, as red as blood and Lannister crimson.

He is, of course, punished for that indiscretion. Cersei had seen and tattled to father, although it wasn’t as if he would not have found out eventually.

He had no way of knowing that Lady Joanna herself had ordered those roses planted. No one had told him who the roses belonged to. No one had told him that Joanna loved roses.

The country house is full of sunlight. The maester had said that mother needed sunlight, and country air, but the country alr makes Tyrion sneeze and walking up and down the great creaking staircase in the old house makes his back and legs ache. So he doesn't go out so much into the garden or upstairs, but spends most of his time in the library on the first floor.

It is a very old library, and many of the books are cracked and faded. Tyrion had first been attracted to the illustrations, and later taught himself the words to go along with the images.

Many of his memories of the country house are of the heavy leg braces the maester had recommended he wear. Cersei snickers to hear him lumbering about and even Jaime smiles, while Lord Tywin looks on silently at his dwarf son, as if he had swallowed something sour. It is a relief to be able to sit, with no one around to laugh or scold or remind him of all his shortcomings.

Sometimes he hears music coming from a phonograph somewhere on the second floor, and footsteps and laughter. It was the same song that mother used to dance to when she was well, and sometimes when Tyrion hears it he imagines his mother dancing, the way she used to when there was company. He had only faint memories of those times, sneaking downstairs and peeking behind a doorway when he was supposed to be in bed. Mother would wear her red dress, and dance with father, and everyone would laugh and smile and the music would play merrily on. Even Cersei would look pretty in an emerald gown, and would serve drinks for the men.

One day he is in the library when he is interrupted. It was not usual that anyone found him here but when Tyrion looks up, the maester is there in the doorway.

“She has asked for you,” the man says, with particular emphasis on you. The maester told him to come and Tyrion did, timidly, but also with a sudden, ardent curiosity. His mother had summoned him. He had never been into her room before. He looks around suddenly for father, but father is not there.

Years later he would enter that room and still catch the faint smell of roses, the lingering echo of the phonograph, as if from far away.

Tyrion stumbles on the stairs, waddling clumsily under the strain of the leg braces. The maester pulls him by the arm, telling him that he must not keep his mother waiting.

The room they enter at the top of the stairs is dark, and it takes a few minutes for Tyrion’s eyes to adjust to the lack of light. The curtains are drawn on all windows except one, which shows the faintest sliver of sunlight, and Tyrion recognizes the window which he had so often looked up at from the garden. _If the sunlight is good for mother_ , he wonders, _then why is it so dark in here_?

The main source of light in the room comes from a candle on the bedside table, and beside it, in the big four poster bed which dominates much of the room, a hunched figure is scribbling on a yellowed pad.

The maester clears his throat. “My lady, forgive me, but need I remind you that writing, ah, is dangerous for your, ah...your delicate health.”

“I care not for your advice,” the woman in the bed snaps, whip-sharp, without looking up. Tyrion sees the white hand, and the white throat, and the tumble of pale gold hair that falls in waves from the bent head. After a moment she looks up. This time her voice sounds tired. “What is it?”

Her eyes are very green, though her face is very pale. The eyes fall on Tyrion. “Ah. Yes.” To the maester she says, “I need a moment alone with my son, please.”

The maester shuts the door behind him, and Tyrion immediately finds himself staring at the oriental rug on the floor. The curves of its pattern seemed to form eyes staring up at him, rounded mouths open in mockery.

“Come here, child,” says the woman on the bed.

His leg braces wail noisily with each laborious, creaking step as he crosses the room to the bed. He stops by the bedside but continues to look stupidly at the floor.

There is a long silence, and suddenly the pale hand lifts, and rests atop his head. Tyrion bows slightly as the long fingers thread in his hair. It's a strange feeling but not entirely unpleasant.

At this angle Tyrion can see the pad with its scribblings lying on the bedside table, but he can’t read what is written on it. The handwriting is full of long, slanting curves and loops, though, and he thinks it elegant and beautiful.

“A lion is not meant to live in a cage,” the woman in the bed says suddenly. Her hand is still in his hair but she seems to be speaking to someone else, her voice strangely far away.

The hand falls away. “You may leave me now,” she says.

The following day, Tyrion removes the straps on the metal braces and leaves them lying on the floor of his bedroom.

_A lion is not meant to live in a cage._

He makes it halfway to the landing on the stairs, carefully placing one foot in front of the other and clinging to the rail, before his leg twists suddenly and crumples beneath him. He cries out as he falls, tumbling down the steps and landing painfully, with blood dripping from his skinned knees and palms and his body aching painfully. Snot is running down from his nose and into his mouth when Jaime finds him and carries him back to his room.

“Did you forget to put on your braces this morning?” Jaime scolds.

Years later, lying in a bed in a brothel in the city with a woman whose name he cannot remember, her hands threaded in his hair, Tyrion suddenly finds himself thinking of the day that Jaime found him at the bottom of the stairs.

He sometimes goes back to visit that house in the country. No one has lived there for years, and there are no flowers in the garden. There are no lavish parties in the parlor, although in the stillness he still can hear the swish of her skirt as she dances, the soft music of the phonograph. In the room upstairs, he sees Lady Joanna dancing with father, their laughter echoing in the dusty sunlight. He is glad that the curtains are open for her now.


End file.
